Ensure that your Identity and Access Management role includes the permissions required to
create and view log-based metrics, and to create alerting policies.
For details, see
Permissions for log-based metrics.
List log-based metrics
To view a list of log-based metrics for your Google Cloud project, do the
following:
In the Google Cloud console, go to the Log-based Metrics page:
If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading is
Logging.
Select an existing Google Cloud project.
The log-based metrics interface displays two lists of metric-types:
System metrics and User-defined metrics.
The User-defined metrics pane of the log-based metrics interface has
several features to help you manage the user-defined metrics in your
Google Cloud project:
The user-defined metrics table includes Name, Description,
Type, and Filter columns. These fields are specified when you
create the metric.
The Filter user-defined metrics pane lets you filter your metric list
by text search or metric Name, Description, and Filter.
The user-defined metrics table includes columns for
Previous month usage and Month-to-date usage (MTD). This usage
data is useful, for example, if
you want to determine which metrics ingest the most data or to
estimate your bills.
The more_vertMore menu for each metric in your user-defined
metrics pane contains additional features for managing your metrics:
View metric details: Shows you the metric's Name, Type,
Description, Filter, Units, and Labels, if defined.
Edit metric: Lets you edit certain fields for the metric.
Disable metric: Lets you stops the metric from being calculated.
You can re-enable a disabled metric from the same menu.
Delete metric: Lets you delete the metric.
View logs for metric: Takes you to the Logs Explorer and
populates the metric's filter in the Query builder and runs the
query.
View in Metrics Explorer: Lets you chart the metric.
Create alert from metric: Lets you configure notifications when a
log-based metric matches criteria that you specify. For more
information, see Alert on log-based metrics.
Chart log-based metrics
To create a chart of a log-based metric, do the following:
In the Google Cloud console, go to the Log-based Metrics page:
If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading is
Logging.
Find the metric you want to view, and then select
View in Metrics Explorer from the metric's more_vertMore
menu.
Metrics Explorer opens and
is preconfigured for you. However, you might want to change some chart
settings.
For example, the following screenshot shows a chart of the system metric
with the name byte_count for a particular Google Cloud project:
The Aggregation entry shows that each time series on the chart is
a sum of the bytes written to a specific log. In the previous example, the
project contains multiple logs, so the chart displays multiple time series.
To view the data for a specific log, add a filter. For example, to view the
byte_count metric for log entries written by BigQuery,
click Add filter, select log, and then select the BigQuery
entry. The chart now displays a single time series, which shows the total of
the log bytes written by BigQuery.
If you want to view the byte_count metric by the severity of the
log entry, then change the second menu in the Aggregation entry from
None to Severity. The following chart shows the byte_count metric
displayed by severity level for logs written by BigQuery:
For distribution-valued log-based metrics, expand Line chart and
select Heatmap chart.
Optional: To save the chart for future reference, click Save chart
in the toolbar, and then complete the dialog. You can save the
chart to an existing dashboard or create a new dashboard.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Hard to understand","hardToUnderstand","thumb-down"],["Incorrect information or sample code","incorrectInformationOrSampleCode","thumb-down"],["Missing the information/samples I need","missingTheInformationSamplesINeed","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-29 UTC."],[],[],null,["# List and chart log-based metrics\n\nThis document describes how to list and chart log-based metrics by using the\nGoogle Cloud console. For information about creating log-based metrics, see\n[Configure counter metrics](/logging/docs/logs-based-metrics/counter-metrics)\nand [Configure distribution metrics](/logging/docs/logs-based-metrics/distribution-metrics).\n\nBefore you begin\n----------------\n\nEnsure that your Identity and Access Management role includes the permissions required to\ncreate and view log-based metrics, and to create alerting policies.\nFor details, see\n[Permissions for log-based metrics](/logging/docs/access-control#metrics-permissions).\n\nList log-based metrics\n----------------------\n\nTo view a list of log-based metrics for your Google Cloud project, do the\nfollowing:\n\n1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the **Log-based Metrics** page:\n\n [Go to **Log-based Metrics**](https://console.cloud.google.com/logs/metrics)\n\n \u003cbr /\u003e\n\n If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading is\n **Logging**.\n2. Select an existing Google Cloud project.\n The log-based metrics interface displays two lists of metric-types:\n **System metrics** and **User-defined metrics**.\n\n The **User-defined metrics** pane of the log-based metrics interface has\n several features to help you manage the user-defined metrics in your\n Google Cloud project:\n - The user-defined metrics table includes **Name** , **Description** ,\n **Type** , and **Filter** columns. These fields are specified when you\n create the metric.\n\n - The **Filter user-defined metrics** pane lets you filter your metric list\n by text search or metric **Name** , **Description** , and **Filter**.\n\n - The user-defined metrics table includes columns for\n **Previous month usage** and **Month-to-date usage (MTD)** . This usage\n data is useful, for example, if\n you want to determine which metrics ingest the most data or to\n [estimate your bills](/stackdriver/estimating-bills).\n\n The *more_vert* **More** menu for each metric in your user-defined\n metrics pane contains additional features for managing your metrics:\n\n - **View metric details** : Shows you the metric's **Name** , **Type** , **Description** , **Filter** , **Units** , and **Labels**, if defined.\n - **Edit metric**: Lets you edit certain fields for the metric.\n - **Disable metric**: Lets you stops the metric from being calculated. You can re-enable a disabled metric from the same menu.\n - **Delete metric**: Lets you delete the metric.\n - **View logs for metric** : Takes you to the Logs Explorer and populates the metric's filter in the **Query builder** and runs the query.\n - **View in Metrics Explorer**: Lets you chart the metric.\n - **Create alert from metric** : Lets you configure notifications when a log-based metric matches criteria that you specify. For more information, see [Alert on log-based metrics](/logging/docs/logs-based-metrics/charts-and-alerts).\n\nChart log-based metrics\n-----------------------\n\nTo create a chart of a log-based metric, do the following:\n\n1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the **Log-based Metrics** page:\n\n [Go to **Log-based Metrics**](https://console.cloud.google.com/logs/metrics)\n\n \u003cbr /\u003e\n\n If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading is\n **Logging**.\n2. Find the metric you want to view, and then select\n **View in Metrics Explorer** from the metric's *more_vert* **More**\n menu.\n\n [Metrics Explorer](/monitoring/charts/metrics-explorer) opens and\n is preconfigured for you. However, you might want to change some chart\n settings.\n\n For example, the following screenshot shows a chart of the system metric\n with the name `byte_count` for a particular Google Cloud project:\n\n The **Aggregation** entry shows that each time series on the chart is\n a sum of the bytes written to a specific log. In the previous example, the\n project contains multiple logs, so the chart displays multiple time series.\n\n To view the data for a specific log, add a filter. For example, to view the\n `byte_count` metric for log entries written by BigQuery,\n click **Add filter** , select **log** , and then select the BigQuery\n entry. The chart now displays a single time series, which shows the total of\n the log bytes written by BigQuery.\n If you want to view the `byte_count` metric by the severity of the\n log entry, then change the second menu in the **Aggregation** entry from\n **None** to **Severity** . The following chart shows the `byte_count` metric\n displayed by severity level for logs written by BigQuery:\n\n3. For distribution-valued log-based metrics, expand **Line chart** and\n select **Heatmap chart**.\n\n For more information about distribution-valued metrics, see\n [Distribution metrics](/monitoring/charts/charting-distribution-metrics) and\n [Percentiles and distribution-valued metrics](/monitoring/api/v3/distribution-metrics).\n4. Optional: To save the chart for future reference, click **Save chart**\n in the toolbar, and then complete the dialog. You can save the\n chart to an existing dashboard or create a new dashboard.\n\n| **Tip:** If you don't see any data in the graph, try increasing the time interval, which defaults to one hour, or changing the default settings.\n\nWhat's next\n-----------\n\n- To create an alerting policy for a log-based metric, see [Alert on log-based metrics](/logging/docs/logs-based-metrics/charts-and-alerts).\n- For more information about charting metric data, see these\n Monitoring resources:\n\n - [Metrics Explorer](/monitoring/charts/metrics-explorer)\n - [Creating charts](/monitoring/charts)"]]
